Everybody Get Your DUNS! And Why Grants.Gov Needs An Extreme Makeover.

As the Washington Post recently observed, the Obama Team keep running into the unexpected brick wall of finding that the Bushies did little to upgrade the government technology they inherited from the Clintons. So they keep assuming they are going to be able to do all this stuff which is utterly routine these days, only to discover that before they can launch they must simultaneously invest in needed technology and decide whether or not to build on the primitive, dead-end stuff they inherited. And so it goes for Grants.gov. I have no doubt this was cutting edge back when they put it together in 1999. And I expect that it's mission is further complicated by the need to comply with a whole host of laws around giving out government grants and maintaining federal databases, each developed by its own separate agency and using its own quaint rules and definitions. Which is why I recommend that Team Obama ditch the existing package and start from scratch. Don't try to build on Grants.gov. Create an entirely separate system for ARRA designed to meet the statutory goals of making it easy to apply, easy to use, easy to track money, and easy to define and collect metrics that show whether this stuff actually accomplishes anything. Oh, and for bonus points, make it customizable in a way that will let people tag information so they can use it for data collection and research purposes we haven't even thought of yet. Happily, all of this stuff is off the shelf technology these days.